Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz Read Free Book Online Page B

way they memorialized it at school wasn’t nearly the production I was expecting. We had a candle-lighting ceremony. The chorus sang a few songs. We missed one period for the assembly, then we trotted on back to class. All I really felt was a nagging feeling I should have signed up for chorus.
    I wanted to email a friend back home and ask what it was like at my old school, but I didn’t know how to ask in a way that wouldn’t seem . . . vulgar. So, how was your September 11th?
    Jasper calls, “Dad?” from the kitchen, so he smiles at me and gets up. “We’ll talk more later,” he says. “I’m glad you’re doing okay, Li.”
    I wonder where he got the impression that I’m doing okay, but actually, I am.
    Well, I’m not great or anything, but I’m probably not getting any worse.
    Craigy—
    Dad and I just had a nice talk about STATISTICS. Facts and figures and such. You know how fathers are. Did yours make you memorize baseball cards?
    Washington DC didn’t come off looking so hot.
    But you always do.
     
    I can’t send that.
    He’d probably be offended.
    Or aroused.
    And neither of those is really my intention.
    Probably.
    I hold down backspace.
    I should probably make some cancer-kid joke. Those always go over well with Craig. I can’t decide if this is a horrible idea, since I snarked at him for making fun of dead people earlier today.
    Generally, I can’t decide if I should feel ashamed about the cancer jokes.
    Leukemia, after all the Lifetime movies, begs to be made fun of. It’s so overinflated. Plus it’s been seven years, so at this point, it really does feel like a joke. Like a gross-out story someone told me when I was a kid.
    I could say that with full confidence if I didn’t still sometimes wake up from nightmares that make me breathe so hard I throw up. But they are less and less frequent every year.
    Cancer is just a way to be sick in real life, but in movies and stuff it’s shorthand for he was young and beautiful and pure and then he got sick and he suffered and he had poignant last words and he died. And I can tell myself that’s what happened with Theodore, though it’s not entirely accurate. His last word was “water” and he died before he could drink it. You can make that beautiful, if you want. But the reality is, he was a thirsty forty-pound boy, and he died whining.
    And the beautiful tragic death is obviously not how it worked out for me. So, way to fuck up, leukemia.
    But the idea that this shitty disease sanctified our lives really bothers me. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t a fighter. I was the one who responded to Jasper’s marrow transplant. I was a statistic. And so was Theo.
    The bottom line is, cancer happens the exact same way other things happen: It does, or it doesn’t. But it never means anything.
    Okay, cool, but this isn’t writing my email to Craig. And, hey, guess what? This isn’t about Theo.
    Craigy—
    Sorry about all the bad stuff.
    Be well.
    Lio
    PS Your animals are safe. Promise.
    I hit send before I can stop myself.

CRAIG
    I CAN’T SLEEP. I WRITE EMAILS.
    I can’t believe I’m writing to Cody. That after all of that bullshit and mindfucking I put myself through about not writing to Cody before he emailed me, now I’m doing it. It’s his turn. The way I was supposed to keep from going crazy was I was going to only email when it was my turn, because then I wasn’t crazy, then I wasn’t needy, I was just being polite, I was just being fair, it was my choice whether or not to respond, mine. And here I am writing back to an email he never sent. I’m writing to him because he’s ignoring me.
    I knew it. Iknew all along that I would keep
    coming
    back.
    I’m that boy.
    C—
    Didn’t hear from you today, Cody. You doing okay? How’s school?
    Things are okay here.
    I pause and stare at what I’ve written. Well. I’m clearly the fucking master of conversation. I should teach lessons or something. Lio could pay me a hundred fucking dollars a week to